Kiyoat Husker

5 hours ago, Moiraine said:

 

 

 

Indeed. I'm guessing a huge proportion of Hispanics are pro life.

Yup, as well as drug-dealing rapists.  That's what I am told, anyway, so it must be true.

2 hours ago, Making Chimichangas said:

 

I'm too lazy to look up those acronyms, so I'll just ask you: what do they mean?

2 hours ago, funhusker said:

NIMBY: "Not in my back yard"

What he said^^^^

2 hours ago, Making Chimichangas said:

 

That is entirely possible.  It could very well be that the urban areas do paint a different picture than other, more rural areas.  I still think that ~37% is a low estimation though.

It it wasn't an estimation.  It was the US Census.  I'm sure there is a little grey area because it is based on people self-reporting race, but there are literally millions of data points they are basing it on.

 On the other hand, I'd say your observations qualify as anecdotal.  Tiny sampling point, and the way someone looks is not a reliable predictor of race or ethnicity.  Tan caucasians can look Hispanic, and there are plenty of latinos that are whiter in color than the average Nebraskan.

9 hours ago, Making Chimichangas said:

You know, reading this thread would almost make one believe that Trump actually thinks nothing humans could do would damage the environment.  

 

So I have a great solution: Let's have toxic waste sites, smog producing factories, and all industrial trash/waste dumping sites constructed next to all Trump owned properties.  I mean, since he thinks it's no big deal to pollute the environment...

 

So, instead of MAGA, his 2020 campaign would be NIMBY?

I would also add that Republicans are really shooting themselves in the foot with regard to racial and national xenophobia.  Hispanics as a group have shown voting patterns that are as diverse as they are.  Many hispanics in America are very socially conservative, but will never support a guy like Trump, for obvious reasons.

 The increase in Hispanic demographics in America don't have to hurt the Conservatives, if they could just drop the whole racism thing.  IMO 

8 hours ago, Making Chimichangas said:

 

I think 37% Hispanic is a gross under-representation of the general populace of Texas.  I mean, I can't prove that empirically, but it just seems really low.  I've been to Texas, specifically Dallas/Ft. Worth and most of the city seems to be brown.  That was my general impression/over-view anyway.

Although I am very anti gerrymandering, I have to call you out on this statement as a gross over-generalization based on limited experience.  This is the kind of thing I hate in political arguments, where someone discredits data based on personal observations.

i know you didn't mean anything by  it, but I just thought I would mention it.  I would guess that large urban areas in Texas might have a different racial makeup than smaller towns?

1 hour ago, NUance said:

The thing about violent movies and TV is that they tend to be unrealistic.  Combatants do incredible things with guns and swords that are humanly impossible.  Have you ever tried to shoot a beer can from 20 feet with a pistol?  It's a lot harder than it looks.  But in the movies people can shoot a guy in the forehead from 50 feet while he's moving.  

 

And the violence itself is unrealistic.  Soldiers get shot once in the movies and they die.  In real life I don't think people generally die right away unless it's a shot to the head, or heart, or other vital organ.  War movies wouldn't be as popular if they showed soldiers writhing around on the ground with their legs blown apart below the knees.  It would be more realistic if there was more crying and screaming and people s#!tting themselves as they take shots to the body.

 

War movies probably wouldn't be as popular if they were more like real life and less like video games.  :shrug:  

 

==========================================  

 

That said, some of my favorite movies are war movies.  Unrealistic and all.  lol

Excellent point.  To that end, I thought the movie "Unforgiven" did an admirable job of addressing how the glorification of violence can give children an unrealistic view of war, crime, law enforcement, etc.

i would add that I don't think that  glorification of violence is a new phenomenon, by any means.  I'm sure that the first time a young soldier or warrior of any era experienced real killing, it was a shocking thing that burst their bubble based on what they thought based on glorious war stories.

1 minute ago, BIG ERN said:

That reply was meant for the thread you started on creationist. My bad 

Ha!  I thought as much, but I didn't want to be rude.  Instead I gave you a snide rebuttal.  You're welcome.

9 minutes ago, BIG ERN said:

 

You would first have to believe in the Big Bang. That 'life' is a complete accident and .0000000000000000000000000001% chance of happening.

 

You don't have to believe all of the things you mentioned.  That is, like, three separate things.  You can believe or not believe them in any combination.  Further, they are not a prerequisite for belief in extra-terrestrial life.  

You don't have to just be a Christian or just believe in science.  Many of us can do both.

17 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

 

Thanks!  Very informative and engaging video!  A little more optimistic than the explanation I gave, too.

Just kidding.  I didn't want to make too long of a post.

So, if you imagine the entire known universe as existing in an area the size of a beach ball, and all of time to exist in about five minutes, how long would the existence of earth's humans take?  

We as a species won't exist forever.  At some point we will die off.  5,000 more years?  A billion?  Either way our existence could be represented in time like this: (he snaps his fingers).  

Now imagine another intelligent society over here,... *points inside the imaginary beach ball* then he snaps again.

And now here *snap*, and here, *snap*, and here *snap*, et cetera. 

The point is that even if many many different intelligent species evolve in the universe, it is so vast both in space AND time, that the odds of encountering each other are still extremely low.

Many intelligent societies on other planets have probably already come and gone before we even existed as a species, and many will likely exist long after we are gone.

kind of a lonely thing, right?

I heard something on public radio a couple of days ago that relates to the UFO thing.  It was a performer that was playing music while telling a story about his Russian astrophysicist drinking buddy.  In the story he asked his Russian friend if he thought extra-terrestrial intelligent life exists, and if so, why haven't they contacted us.

He said the first question is easy.  Yes, there are too many opportunities for life to have evolved on other planets for intelligent life to NOT have happened elsewhere.  Probably many, many times.

To answer the second question he had to use an analogy...

I'll have to finish the story tomorrow.

55 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

 

Pro-life Dems are a rare breed as is a Pro-choice Republican.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/07/on-abortion-persistent-divides-between-and-within-the-two-parties-2/

Actually there is more diversity than you may think, despite the party's best efforts.  Here is a Pew Research Poll from July of this year that shows 54% of moderate Republicans believe abortions should be legal in all/most cases.  Even 27% of self-identifying "conservative" Republicans believe that.

61% of moderate Democrats and 91% of liberal Democrats also believe in legal abortions.  So there is more diversity within the party on this issue than between moderates of both parties.  Sounds pretty diverse to me. 

Maybe the rhetoric is failing to polarize the average American, mainly riling up those that are more passionate about it?

Christian: yes.

Afterlife: yes.

paranormal: no.

I can see the hypocrisy in that set of beliefs, but that doesn't change my belief.  I also find it odd that we "mainline" protestants generally don't talk much about faith healing, raising the dead and exorcisms, even though the bible talks about the apostles performing such acts.  The assumption is that Jesus and the Apostles were special, and nothing like that would happen now.  I don't believe in faith healers, but there is a literal biblical precedent.

3 hours ago, dudeguyy said:

I think they rather prefer it as a wedge issue to mop up single-issue pro-life voters, myself. 

This, I think is the crux of the issue.  It has become politicized and entrenched with rhetoric as an ideological divide.  A way to demonize the "other" group as either unconscionable baby killers, or proponents of a Right-wing Christian theocracy.  Of course, neither side fits that description very well. 

Black = Option 1 (not legal)

Red = Option 2 (mother's life only)

Orange = Option 3 (mother's life /health)

Brown = Option 4 (mother's life/health or rape/incest)

Yellow = Option 5 (life/health/rape/ or fetal defects)

Green = Option 6 (life/health/rape/defects/ or socio-economic factors)

Blue = Option 7 (legal)

Why not look at the most polarizing topic first?  There are other ways of looking at Abortion legality, like trimester, contraceptives, planned parenthood, etc.  But I thought I would just get down to brass tacks.  What do you believe should be legal?  These categories align with how the United Nations defined national abortion law categories in this 2013 report:

https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/policy/WorldAbortionPolicies2013/WorldAbortionPolicies2013_WallChart.pdf

What I find interesting is how other developed and developing countries compare to the United States.  Wikipedia has a nice sort-able spreadsheet and map:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law#cite_note-UN2013info-1

Wow!  I didn't know if this thread would take off, but it sure has been some interesting (and civil) discourse.

When I started the poll, I initially thought "Am I giving too many choices?" but as it turns out, people are landing all over the map in this "belief spectrum".  As it should be.  It makes me wonder where people would land in other topics that have been "polarized" by politics in America.

Abortion?  Gay marriage/rights/equality?  Gun ownership?  Environment/pollution?  Military spending/deployment? Media bias/Fake news/Propaganda?

I think that the tribalism of polarized politics has done harm to the naturally diverse "spectrum" of people's personal beliefs.  I blame the 2-party dominated system we have in this country.

2 hours ago, HuskerNation1 said:

I added Camron, Tannor, Clark, Henry and Bell putting us at 23 commits for a score of 222.77 on 247. That puts us at 17th

You may want to compare any projections to the 2017 team rankings instead of the current ones.  Other teams are constantly improving their classes, too.  It's like chasing a moving target.

16 hours ago, Landlord said:

I'm a hopeful Christian universalist,...

3 hours ago, TGHusker said:

...  I understand and am tempted to believe in universalism because of one attribute of God that is always highlighted is His love.  Yet I understand that love involves choice....

I have always been fascinated with the Unitarian Universalist Church, but have not researched it fully.  This is how I understand it:

There are Unitarian Christians (believe in one god, not the trinity), Universalist Christians (believe in non-exclusive salvation, all humans will reunite with God after death, no hell), and then there is the Unitarian Universalist Church (open to diverse belief systems and religious traditions).

While I will probably always stay ELCA Lutheran, I like the idea that people in other religions shouldn't be condemned to hell just for existing in a different culture with a different religion.  Forced conversion doesn't seem to jive with Jesus's message to me.  The UU church will probably always interest me, but is too far outside my comfort zone.  I can believe what I want to believe, though, regardless of church affiliation.

16 minutes ago, funhusker said:

Muslims have the same Book of Genesis, if that's the question. 

That's not technically true.  According to wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_mythology

The Islamic creation story is scattered through several books, rather than in one place, like Genesis.  The story is very similar, though, and obviously evolved from the same source.  Here is something I found very interesting:

Quote

 

According to the Qur'an, the skies and the earth were joined together as one "unit of creation", after which they were "cloven asunder".[12] After the parting of both, they simultaneously came into their present shape after going through a phase when they were smoke-like.[13] Some parts of the Qur'an state that the process of creation took 6 days,[14] Other parts provide detail about creation. 2 days to create the Earth,[15] 2 days to create the mountains, to bless the Earth and to measure its sustenance, total 4 days,[16][17] and then 2 more days to create the heavens and the stars.[18] In the Quran, the word "day" is used loosely to mean era, for example Surah 70 verse 4: "The angels and spirit will ascend to Him during a day the extent of which is fifty thousand years"

[...]

 Traditionally, the earth is held to be inhabited by several other creatures, like the Jinn, before God created humanity.

 

So, a "day" in the Qur'an can literally mean an era of thousands of years, The earth went through a gaseous phase before forming into a planet, and the earth was inhabited by other creatures before man was created.

Sounds a lot like how we now understand planet formation and early Hominids, at least to my biased mind.

Just now, Big Red 40 said:

This is a great thread so ill quit hijacking it now lol

Back to the OP if there are any Muslims on the board? That's one i haven't looked into at all , though i plan to.

Hijack away, it's just discussion.  I find it quite interesting.  I was just being turd, and pointing out that God rested on the seventh day, so the world was created in six days.

6 days.  Carry on...

Since you like "The Hill" here's an article (not an op-ed) written at the same time as that op-ed:

http://thehill.com/latino/324607-reports-find-that-immigrants-commit-less-crime-than-us-born-citizens

And an in-depth study from the prominent Libretarian think-tank, The Cato Institute:

https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/immigration_brief-1.pdf

A comprehensive review of academic research involving immigrants and crime:

https://www.cato.org/blog/immigration-crime-what-research-says

All of them say the same thing - The immigrant and illegal immigrant crime rate is significantly lower than the general population crime rate.  Same with the incarceration rate.

23 minutes ago, Bornhusker said:

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/crime/329589-the-truth-about-crime-illegal-immigrants-and-sanctuary-cities

Here is the source in the opinion article that this author bases all of his numbers and assumptions on statistically:

Quote

Research conducted by the federal government oversight organization Judicial Watch in 2014 documents that 50 percent of all federal crimes were committed near our border with Mexico. 

Because of this one single data set, all of the crimes are disproportionally amplified.  Like this statement:

Quote

75 percent of all criminal defendants who were convicted and sentenced for federal drug offenses were illegal immigrants.

According to this Pew Research Center article on the same data set, there are very specific reasons why 50% of federal crimes in 2014 were committed on the Mexican border:

Quote

The figures, [...] do not include arrests made by state and local authorities, which make the vast majority of U.S. arrests each year (nearly 99% in 2014).

[...]

While the 2014 data do not necessarily reflect current trends, they highlight a growing focus on immigration offenses on the part of federal law enforcement agencies.

[...]

In fact, just one agency within DHS – Customs and Border Protection – made more arrests in 2014 (64,954) than all of the agencies within DOJ combined (58,265). 

[...]

The growth in arrests by Customs and Border Protection coincides with a significant staffing increase within the agency, particularly during the mid-to-late 2000s. Between 2004 and 2010, the number of Border Patrol officers almost doubled, rising from 10,819 to 20,558.

[...]

The federal government’s increasing focus on immigration offenses is evident in other aspects of the Bureau of Justice Statistics data.

 

Read the article, if you care to.  It's easy to bend statistics when you have an agenda.  op-eds aren't the best place to look for good data.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/10/immigration-offenses-make-up-a-growing-share-of-federal-arrests/